


Cape Fear River

by acatalepsy



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: Alexithymia, Bittersweet Ending, Confessional Style Poetry, Gay/Bisexual Link Neal, Healing, Internalized Homophobia, LGBTQ Themes, M/M, Pining, Poetry, Prose Poem, Retrospective, Unrequited Love, the general plight of growing up gay in a small town
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:41:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27445807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acatalepsy/pseuds/acatalepsy
Summary: Weeks after the stained callous, tobacco sickness of AugustI run up to meet you amid the pines with aching muscles —the underbrush crackling, rusted handlebars coated in honeysuckle,hiss of your inhaler, whisper of dappled sun.//It’s late August and you’re my best friendand I don’t have the words for what this is yet.
Relationships: Rhett McLaughlin/Link Neal
Comments: 5
Kudos: 10





	Cape Fear River

**Author's Note:**

> @ anyone who followed me for doctor who fic and doesn't know i write RPF -- Do Not Look At Me
> 
> also -- did i write rhink fanfiction and submit it to my uni's intro to creative writing class taught by the freaking poet laureate? yes. yes i did.
> 
> stanza four deviates from randl lore (?) a little because i had to change it up a bit for the class. but maybe rhett does have a secret name that's hard to pronounce? or maybe that's just a metaphor.
> 
> this is two years old, so it's a bit embarrassing. but i still like it! hopefully someone finds this relatable.

**Cape Fear River**

_1_

It’s late July and I’m watching you, thumbs splitting the flesh of an orange,  
right down the centre.  
Golden’s your chin, the juice running out. Scraping out the pale rind  
with your teeth.  
Spitting pips, lining them up along the windowsill. Dirt grazed knees,  
bruised elbows bumping.

The radio is on — twin sickled cicatrix curving their way around clammy hands  
as we twist back the reels,  
respooling church cassettes, carefully taping over the top, around the hard plastic shell  
to record the 'devil music' we sing when no one's around.  
I’ll meet you at the place where the graveyard and the streets all labeled _one way_ fracture and then  
we can drive, and drive, and drive.  
  


That night we collapsed on the riverbank, giggling,  
choking back mulled wine in the long grass.

_2_

  
I had a vision of you the other night, amid the lethargy dust motes —  
your face a shifting projection, disappearing against a crown of light,  
flyaway hairs floating up against the window.

  
I made a home in that hazy multiple exposure photograph of memory,  
the afterimages left behind my eyes.  
Every night I see you differently. The pictures are  
mutated, mixed genome, multi-sensory — blackberry soda, powdered icing sugar  
clinging to fingers, hair bleach, your perpetually flat acoustic guitar.

  
And then I remembered  
her perfect skull, lips parting to drink the shallow water,  
golden follicles, clouding up my eyes.

  
I want you to call,  
for you to tell me you wish she was you.

_3_

  
“You’re the best I can do.”  
This is a curious illness. I’m sorry it’s mine.

_4_

  
Weeks after the stained callous, tobacco sickness of August  
I run up to meet you amid the pines with aching muscles —  
the underbrush crackling, rusted handlebars coated in honeysuckle,  
hiss of your inhaler, whisper of dappled sun.

  
Can I ask you a question?  
Do you think there’s something wrong with me?

  
And if you’d answer truthfully, you’d say that sometimes  
you don’t understand me  
and if I replied truthfully I’d say

  
that if you let me  
I’d greet the crease of your brow, every eyelash, bridge of your nose,  
the shy freckles of your collarbone, the dip of your waist  
with my mouth.  
That I know your name, your real one, that you’re embarrassed of,  
the one that your parents call you. That I’ve  
been saying it forwards, backwards, three times over in the mirror,  
just to get it right.  
That even before I met you I felt like I was half  
of something else.

  
But it’s late August and you’re my best friend  
and I don’t have the words for what this is yet

  
So I say that it’s nothing  
and you say that I’m funny  
and we collapse under the weight of Summer in our love licks.

_5_

  
Over drinks one day a friend says it's hard to look back,   
to scavenge these discarded parts of yourself and give them names again.

  
I want to take you to Saint Anthony,  
to say that this wordless thing  
is a vessel overflowing,  
to tell you to ache with love.  
Because you're braver than you think.

On the other side of all this there is a stranger  
looking back.  
  


Do you see him?  
Imagine you are holding his hand.

_6_

  
And even then,  
after all this.

  
There is no cure for you,  
no remedy anywhere.


End file.
